This invention relates to methods and apparatus for manufacturing improved thin-film magnetic recording heads. More specifically, the invention relates to a multi-layer lithographically fabricated device used to produce the improved thin-film recording heads. It further relates to a focused particle beam system for milling a recording head pole-tip assembly without irradiating a sensitive structure, e.g. a read head, of the recording head.
Thin-film magnetic recording heads have gained wide acceptance in the data storage industry. A thin-film recording head has a small, precisely formed pole-tip assembly. The size and shape of the pole-tip assembly, which includes features on the order of one-half a micron, in part determines the magnetic field pattern produced by the recording head. This magnetic field pattern affects how narrowly the recording head can record data tracks on the magnetic media of magnetic memory storage devices, such as computer hard disks, and digital data tape drives.
Thinner data tracks allow a storage device to store more data tracks per area of media and therefore more data per device. Accordingly, precisely forming the pole-tip assembly of the recording head results in an increase in the total data storage capacity of a magnetic memory device. Manufacturers seek to form the geometry of the pole-tip assembly with high precision, and to thereby achieve pole-tip assemblies capable of providing magnetic field patterns suitable for writing narrow tracks of recorded data.
Manufacturers presently endeavor to form the precise shape of the pole-tip assembly by employing a lithographic technique to fabricate a multi-layer device. The multi-layer device contains the structure for a recording head. As stated above, a thin-film recording head has a small pole-tip assembly. Typically, the lithographic technique deposits alternating layers of conductive and insulating materials onto a substrate by an evaporation, sputtering, plating, or other deposition technique that provides precise control of the deposition thicknesses. Chemical etching, reactive ion etching (RIE), or other mechanisms shape and form the deposited layers into a pole-tip assembly having the desired geometry. Thus, the pole-tip assembly is contained within a multi-layer lithographically fabricated device.
Although existing lithographic techniques work sufficiently well to provide pole-tip assemblies having feature sizes suitable for current data storage capacity, these lithographic techniques are limited as to the small feature sizes that they can produce. For example, present photolithographic techniques require precise application of photoresist layers. Commonly, the photoresist layer is applied to produce a topology that includes voids having 10:1 aspect ratios. Such topologies are difficult to achieve reliably using such a photoresist technique.
Thus, these lithographic techniques are poorly suited for achieving a high yield of precisely formed pole-tip assemblies. In the interest of increased areal storage density, manufacturers decrease the dimensions of a desired pole-tip assembly. As the dimensions of the desired pole-tip assembly decrease, manufacturers, using existing lithographic techniques, experience high yield loss. In other words, even if manufacturers using existing lithographic techniques are successful achieving a desired pole-tip assembly configuration, they will achieve that desired configuration with a low yield (e.g. only 20-40% of the recording heads produced using existing lithographic techniques will have the desired configuration).
The defective structures that occur during the manufacturing process are difficult to predict and are prone to wide variations. Accordingly, the application of a universal photoresist pattern to the surface of a pole-tip assembly is a generalized solution that often is ill-suited to the actual manufacturing defect of any one recording head. Therefore, current techniques for producing a magnetic recording head have several serious limitations with respect to their ability to control the physical geometry of the recording head.
Consequently, current techniques are often unacceptable for accurately shaping recording heads for use in the higher density data storage devices desired for computers. More specifically, higher density data storage devices can require micromachining of the recording head used with the devices. Manufacturers can micromachine the recording head while it is contained in a multi-layer lithographically fabricated device. The micromachining of the recording head can require accurate shaping of a second structural element, e.g. the write head, in a second layer in relation to a first structural element, e.g. the read head, in a first layer. However, the first structure can be a sensitive structure such as a Magneto-Resistive Stripe (MRS). For background information on the design and function of MRSs and inductive write heads, see Magneto-Resistive Heads, Fundamentals and Applications by John C. Mallinson (Academic Press, Inc., San Diego 1996).
It is important to note that both the MRS and the write head can each have sublayers. MRS""s can include thin-film sublayers five to six angstroms thick. Thus, the focused particle beam system cannot image the first structure to determine the desired shape and location of the second structure because the first structure could be damaged by the imaging process. Furthermore, the associated layer-to-layer registration errors due to lithographic overlay tolerances are larger than the accuracy to which the system must shape the second structure.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide methods and apparatus for manufacturing improved thin-film magnetic recording heads, and, more particularly, for precisely forming the pole-tip assembly of a magnetic recording head without irradiating a sensitive structure, e.g. a read head, in the recording head.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a multi-layer lithographically fabricated device for manufacturing improved thin-film recording heads.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a lithographic process for fabricating a multi-layer device for manufacturing improved thin-film recording heads.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide methods and apparatus for manufacturing improved thin-film recording heads using a focused particle beam.
The invention is next described in connection with certain embodiments; however, it will be clear to those skilled in the art of semiconductor device fabrication that various modifications, additions and subtractions can be made to the described embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention.
One embodiment of the invention precisely forms a pole-tip assembly by milling a second structural element without irradiating a first structural element. The invention avoids irradiating the first structural element by placing a first marker element, which can be imaged and/or damaged, in the same layer of a multi-layer lithographically fabricated device as the first structural element. The marker element has a fixed spatial relationship to the first structural element. Thus, by imaging the first marker element and the second structural element, and knowing the separation between the first structural element and the first marker element, a focused particle beam system can determine the relative location of the first and second structural elements. Consequently, the focused particle beam system can determine, without irradiating the sensitive first structural element, which portions of the second structural element require milling. In this manner, the focused particle beam system mills the second structural element to produce a desired pole-tip configuration. By producing a desired pole-tip configuration, these methods and apparatus produce an improved recording head capable of higher storage density than prior art techniques.
Thus, the invention provides lithographic methods and apparatus for manufacturing improved thin-film recording heads. Furthermore, the invention provides methods and apparatus for employing a focused particle beam to mill a recording head pole-tip assembly without irradiating a sensitive structure, e.g. a read head, of the pole-tip assembly. A focused particle beam for practice of the invention can include an ion beam, electron beam, x-ray beam, optical beam or other similar source of directable radiant energy.
One embodiment of the lithographic method includes the following steps: i) pattern, in a common first lithographic layer, a first structural element and, at a known distance and direction, a first marker element; and ii) pattern, in a common second lithographic layer, a second structural element and a second marker element. The above patterning steps provide the structural elements and the marker elements in a spatial arrangement such that they intersect a geometrical surface that extends transversely to the first and second lithographic layers. Consequently, viewing the first marker element and at least one of the second structural element or the second marker element, at the geometrical surface, provides information for locating the second structural element relative to the first structural element In one embodiment, the second structural element and the second marker element are the same element. In another embodiment, the second marker element is located at a known distance and direction relative to the second structural element.
One embodiment of the process described above provides a multi-layer lithographically fabricated device including a first and second layer. The first layer has a first structural element, and, at a known distance and direction relative thereto, a first marker element. The second layer has a second structural element, and, a second marker element. The structural and marker elements intersect a geometrical surface that extends transversely to the first and second layers so that viewing the first marker element and at least one of the second structural element and the second marker element, at the geometrical surface, provides information for locating the second structural element relative to the first structural element. As stated above, in one embodiment, the second structural element and the second marker element are the same element. In another embodiment, the second marker element is located at a known distance and direction relative to the second structural element.
According to another aspect of the invention, subsequent to the lithographic fabrication of the multi-layer device, manufacturers cleave the device along the above mentioned geometrical surface. Cleaving the device along the geometrical surface exposes the structural and marker elements.
According to another aspect, the invention provides methods and apparatus for employing a focused particle beam system to image marker elements on a multi-layer lithographically fabricated device containing the structure for a magnetic recording head. These processes further employ a processor to generate milling signals based on the physical location of the marker elements as determined from an imaging step. Those signals direct a focused particle beam to remove selected portions of the recording head and thereby shape the recording head. More specifically, according to this method, the focused particle beam can remove selected portions of the write head without irradiation of the read head.
This aspect of the invention thus locates a first structural element with respect to a second structural element in a multi-layer lithographically fabricated device in the following manner. In a first step, image, with a focused particle beam, the first marker element and at least one of the second structural element and the second marker element on the multi-layer device. The first structural element is in a first lithographic layer, and the first marker element is in the same first lithographic layer at a known distance and direction from the first structural element The second structural element is in a second lithographic layer, and the second marker element is in the same second lithographic layer. The structural elements and the marker elements intersect a geometrical surface that extends transversely to the first and second lithographic layers. In a second step, determine, responsive to the first imaging step, the location of the second structural element relative to the location of the first structural element. This determining step can include the processing of information provided by the imaging step for providing information concerning the location of the marker elements. As stated above, in one embodiment, the second structural element and the second marker element are the same element. In another embodiment, the second marker element is located at a known distance and direction relative to the second structural element.
According to yet another aspect, the invention provides an apparatus for shaping a pole-tip assembly of a recording head. The apparatus includes a focused particle beam for selectively interacting with the multi-layer device describe above. The apparatus includes a platform for receiving the multi-layer device containing the structure for the recording head with a pole-tip assembly and for disposing the multi-layer device for contact with the focused particle beam. The apparatus includes a system for generating image signals responsive to the interaction of the focused particle beam with the first marker element and at least one of the second structural element and the second marker element on the multi-layer device and for generating, responsive to the image signals, a coordinate signal representative of a position of the second structural element relative to the first structural element and relative to the focused particle beam. The apparatus further includes a processor responsive to the coordinate signal for generating a milling signal representative of an instruction for applying the focused particle beam to a selected portion of the second structural element for milling the selected portion of the second structural element.
Thus, according to a preferred embodiment of the invention described above, the focused particle beam system images the first marker element and the second structural element located in the multi-layer device. From the location of the first marker element and the second structural element, derived from the images of these elements, the system determines, without irradiating a sensitive first structural element, which portions of the second structural element require milling so as to produce a desired pole-tip configuration. By producing a desired pole-tip configuration, these methods and apparatus produce an improved recording head capable of higher storage density than prior art techniques.
These and other aspects of the invention are evident in the drawings and in the description which follows.